Smoking
Women who smoke during pregnancy are putting their grandchildren as well as their own children at risk. Researchers at the School of Medicine at the University of California have found that some of the chemicals in smoke can permanently damage DNA. It found that it would not only affect smokers' children but could also ruin the health of their grandchildren and possibly following generations.
The study looked at 338 children who had developed asthma in the first five years of their lives and compared them with 570 adolescents without the condition.
It revealed that grandchildren of women who smoked during their pregnancy had 2.1 times the normal risk of developing asthma, while children of these women were 1.5 times more likely to develop the disease.
